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Neverwinter Nights, an Alternative Guide for Newbies

I am aware of niv’s excellent article that covers some the same ground (please read that first) as what I have written here. The thing is that this is written for those that want a more in depth perspective on the subject. I may have gone slightly(!!!!) overboard here to the extent that anyone reads all the information pointed to, by the links I provide, deserves a medal never mind a badge. One thing to be aware of is that because EE is new and still in beta the NwN resources that I point to are all for 1.69/Diamond. Anyway here it is.

It occurred to me that amongst all the long-time-no-see returning players there may well be people completely new to Neverwinter nights. Heck there might even be people who have never played a dungeons and dragons game before. Assuming this to be true I have taken it upon myself to gather together some links to where information that they might find useful, may be found. So here goes.

Neverwinter Nights is a Computer Role-Playing Game based on the rules of the Dungeons & Dragons pen and paper Role-Playing Game. Over the years there have been Various Editions of D&D. NwN uses the third edition rule-set as its base. NwN, as it ships, is based in the official D&D Forgotten Realms world. Fans of the D&D pen and paper game have created a number of wikis for it. These are probably the best two -

Dungeons and Dragons Wikia
Dungeons & Dragons Wiki

During its 15 (and still counting) years the users of Neverwinter Nights have created well over three thousand adventures (termed modules) in addition to the ones that ship with the game. Most of these occur within official D&D settings. Fans of these pen and paper settings have created their own wiki pages as follows -

Greyhawk Wiki
Forgotten Realms Wiki
Dark Sun Wiki
Ravenloft Wiki
Planescape Wiki

Please note that if I could have found a decent wiki page for the Dragonlance setting that dealt with just the D&D interpretation of this setting I would have included it. Anyway, you will find that fan made modules exist that take place in all the mentioned settings. In addition there are two other official settings to take note of -

Spelljammer Wiki
d20 Modern Wiki

While there are assets (including scripted rule changes) for both of these settings available for NwN their use, at least for single player modules, is rare at present. Perhaps you may change that in the future.

But enough of non-NwN specific material, what about wikis for NwN? Well here’s 2.

NWNWiki
Neverwinter Nights Info

OK, so now you’ve got some information about D&D and NwN. Go and play. What’s that? You’ve played all the adventures that you’ve paid for and you want to know if that’s it? Not at all. There is so much more to NwN. You can play on so many new and old persistent worlds via the internet or you can choose from well over 3 thousand modules made by other users. These are all free. Yes the quality varies enormously from those widely regarded as being up there with the best of the professionally made crpg games down to “Johnny’s First module”. Now as I’m purely into single player modules I don’t feel qualified to tell you more about persistent worlds and will leave that to others to fill you in on them. Instead I’ll concentrate on the single player side of things.

So where can you get your hands on these modules? Primarily there are 2 sites. There’s the Neverwinter Vault and there’s the Neverwinter Nexus. The vault is a user funded, run and administered site that sprang into existence just before the old ign vault collapsed after ign were taken over. The Neverwinter Nexus is part of the nexus group of sites that are dedicated to numerous games. Both have their pluses and minuses. Also there is some overlap between the sites in terms of content. Please note that the link to the nexus I have provided is to the older version of that site and is liable to disappear sometime soon. I have tried the new version and simply found it very hard to find anything. Which is why I provide the link I do.

With there being so many user made modules just how do you choose which to download and play? That has been thought of too. Other users have kindly spent time compiling various lists of modules just to help people to find what they want. These lists contain links to the web pages where the modules on the individual lists are to be found. So where can you find these lists? Now here’s the neat part. Because of the number of lists someone has compiled an index of the various lists. A list of lists if you will. It is to be found here.

I hope you find this useful.

TR

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